The popularity of the recreational sport of paintball has risen significantly over the last few years. Tournaments are now being scheduled almost every weekend and professional national and international paintball competitions are becoming more and more popular. All cites, whether large or small are seeing indoor paintball fields being built in addition to the many outdoor playing fields. With the increase in popularity of this sport, the caliber of the players has also increased significantly. Players are now equipping themselves with top-of-the-line protective gear, paintball markers and accessories.
A paintball game requires that each player have a paintball marker and as many paintballs as they can carry. There are numerous types of scenarios that can be played out during a paintball game whether as part of a team or individually, but, in essence, the objective is avoiding to be marked by a paintball. Once marked, a player is removed from the game. The last unmarked player or team remaining on the field at the end of the allotted time is the winner of the game.
Pneumatic paintball markers discharge a paint filled paintball capsule from a paintball marker, through the breech end of the barrel portion, into the barrel and the paintball is then projected out of the muzzle end of the barrel towards its intended target. A paintball being discharged from a pneumatic paintball marker should reach an approximate velocity of 300 feet per second using as little resources as possible, such as compressed air or nitrogen, which is largely determined by the paintball barrel and as such shooting more accurately. Thus, the type of paintball barrel selected by a player is one of the most important pieces of equipment.
Paintballs can vary in size and are usually made of a non-toxic, water-soluble biodegradable paint. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,656,092; 5,353,712, and 5,823,173 are directed to fluid-filled capsule marking paintballs. Thus, when an opponent is marked with these types of paintballs, the fluid-filled capsules burst and the paint is released and marks the opponent. Although paintball capsules appear to be spherical in shape and can have a diameter of between 0.670 inches to 0.695 inches, they are never perfectly round and each paintball manufactured varies in diameter. The inconsistency in the diameters of paintball capsules is because the paintballs must be sufficiently rigid to withstand being projected from a paintball marker while, at the same time, sufficiently fragile to break upon impact with the intended target. Furthermore, the change in ambient temperature and humidity will also cause the paintball to change in size. Moreover, every paintball manufacturer will make a different paintball once again resulting in variations in paintball sizes, which further adds to the importance of the barrel. It is extremely important to match the size of the paintballs that are being used with the size of the inner diameter of the barrel because too tight a fit will decrease the velocity and the travel/projectile distance of the paintball, in addition to possibly breaking the paintball within the barrel. Too loose a fit will also decrease the velocity, distance and accuracy of the paintball due to air loss between the paintball and the inside diameter of the barrel. Moreover, a loose fit may also cause the paintball to simply fall out of the barrel. Therefore, it is desirable that a barrel for a paintball be adapted to account for the various dimensions of paintball capsules.
As such, paintball barrels are available with different internal diameters to accommodate the different sizes and fluctuations of temperature. Barrels are also available in different lengths to improve on distance and accuracy. The drawback to conventional barrels are that a player would need approximately fifteen barrels to accommodate the different paintball sizes and barrel lengths. As barrels are usually fairly long and heavy, this extra equipment would make it inconvenient and uncomfortable for a paintball player. In addition, most barrels are expensive, thus the need for multiple barrels would significantly increase the costs associated with this sport.
U.S. application Ser. No. 10/274,075, and U.S. Pat. No. 6,494,195 disclose a barrel assembly for a pneumatic paintball gun comprising a barrel body and a barrel insert. The barrel insert collaborates with the barrel body to provide a firing bore for the barrel assembly; the insert guides a paintball fired from the breech end of the gun through the barrel and out the muzzle end of the barrel body. Although this application does deal with the problem of having to carry multiple barrels in order to be able to adapt to the various sizes of paintballs, the inserts described do not extend through the majority of the barrel's overall length. Thus they fail to adequately stabilize the paintball path and sufficiently address the changes to the paintball shape caused by fluctuations in temperature or inconsistencies in the manufacturing of paintballs.
In addition, based on the art in the field of paintball markers, should a player decide to change the make of his/her pneumatic paintball marker, the corresponding barrel can no longer be used with the new marker because the connecting means on the new marker is not compatible with the old barrel. Thus, there is a need to accommodate paintball players by providing them with adaptor(s) that can be used on various markers. Therefore, there is a need for the use of adaptor(s) in combination with a universal barrel and one or more removable tubular barrel sleeve inserts and exchangeable variable length muzzle ends.